


you said you'd grow old with me

by thephanlock



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M, The Death Cure Spoilers, but i literally couldn't, i don't know if i made it even more angsty tbh, i tried to do an alternative ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 17:43:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5257745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephanlock/pseuds/thephanlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If we get out of here,” Thomas began and he felt his heart ache already, getting caught up on the ‘if’, the constant reminder that their safety was not guaranteed, they could die. “Promise me we can still be friends; promise you’ll never leave me.”</p><p>“Bloody hell, Tommy.” Newt chuckled and Thomas couldn’t help but let a small smile make an appearance on his lips; he’s always known Newt’s laugh to be contagious. “Really think you can get rid of me that easy? Sorry, you’re stuck with me until we’re in rocking chairs complaining about shuckin’ aches and pains and the good ol’ days.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you said you'd grow old with me

**Author's Note:**

> "you've got your peace now,  
> but what about me?"  
> -you said you'd grow old with me, michael schulte

_**you said you'd grow old with me** _

It was late afternoon when the Box rose for the month.

Rushing over to it, Newt felt his heart pound against his rib cage, almost comically so, like his poor heart was about to burst out of his chest as though he were in a cartoon. It was always the same and he was never sure why, like his body knew something he didn't, someone he didn't. Ever since the beginning, it had felt like he was just waiting for a specific person to crawl out of the box and introduce themselves, re-jogging his memory.

But it never happened.

In the corner of the Box stood a boy with a mop of dark brown hair that lay tousled and disheveled on the top of his head, eyes shooting around the scenery with immense apprehension and terror. One moment he was a little scared, the next he was breathing quicker and quicker and it was all too fast and if he doesn’t stop he knew he would hyperventilate and faint and--

Then, his eyes locked with Newt’s.

Newt had to admit, he felt a little sympathy for the Greenbean. Heck, he must have been terrified and Lord knows Newt had been in his shoes many times. He knew how it felt to be alone and confused, thrown into new situations with no memory and nothing, no one you could rely on. So, he reached down into the box and offered the boy his hand. And he convinced himself that was the only reason why.

**~*~**

“I don’t think I’ve ever asked you but,” Thomas said, finally plucking up the courage after the pair of them spent about twenty minutes in complete silence. It was Thomas’ turn on watch duty for Alby after he'd been stung and Newt had brought him some dinner. However, just as he was about to leave, Thomas stopped Newt with the classic ‘we need to talk’ line. “How did you get your limp?”

Immediately, his face dropped.

Thomas started panicking because what else could he do? His mind began to race a mile a minute, thinking things like; I shouldn’t have said that, I should never have brought it up, I should have left things the way they were but no, I had to go and ruin it all and now he's going to hate me.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Newt. I shouldn’t have asked, I—“

“I jumped.” The other boy blurted out, resisting the urge to cover his mouth with his hand. Biting hard on his bottom lip, he waited impatiently for Thomas’ reaction. When all the others found out, he would receive pitiful looks and sad smiles, not so subtle glances that made him feel like a wounded puppy that had been kicked in the stomach.

“What?” Thomas stuttered, completely unprepared for such a heartbreaking bombshell. He didn’t know how to react. It was obvious that Newt didn’t tell a lot of people this personally, of course they found out eventually through hushed whispers and rumours but by the look on his face, Thomas knew that being told by the boy himself is a rare occurrence.

“I climbed up them bloody vines and threw myself off the side,” Newt paused, taking a deep breath and willing himself to continue without letting any tears slip. “Only got halfway up but figured it’d be high enough. It wasn’t. Messed up my leg though.” At the last sentence, he forced a laugh, a last-ditch effort to savour the light atmosphere.

It failed.

And silence fell upon them for a moment, both of them struggling to come up with something to say. Wishing he had just ignored Thomas’ question, Newt looked down. Of course, ignoring his question was never really an option; ignoring Thomas in general was impossible.

"Hey, listen to me," Thomas urged and Newt was more than relieved, but also frustrated, to find that his tone of voice was neutral; no sign of pity but no sign of anything else either, just an unusual warmth lying beneath his words. "I'm not, I'm no good at this stuff but if you ever want to talk to me about it, just know you can, okay?"

"You don't think I'm crazy?" Newt asked, his eyebrows furrowing a little in confusion. With a snort, Thomas held back a laugh and shook his head, throwing his arm around Newt's shoulders.

"The Glade's a shuckin' awful place and people feel different things when they get here, deal with it in different ways and hell, I think the only reason I haven't thrown myself off the top is because of-" He stopped himself short, wanting to backtrack and erase the last sentence; he wasn't ready to reveal something like that, not yet anyway. Sighing, he continued. "Just please, don't do it again. I don't know what I'd, what _we'd_ all do if you were gone. The Glade would fall apart."

"You still sound bloody ridiculous using Glader words." Newt pointed out, leaning into Thomas' touch and finding the deep and constant sadness inside him subside for a while.

"I know."

**~*~**

It was almost four weeks since the box rose and the pair of them were sat on the grass, on the outskirts of the bonfire celebrations in their own little world. Somehow, conversation drew from comedy and laughing to serious faces and promises as suddenly as the flick of switch.

“If we get out of here,” Thomas began and he felt his heart ache already, getting caught up on the ‘if’, the constant reminder that their safety was not guaranteed; they could _die_. When he thought of it that way, the Glade didn’t seem that bad. Still, he refused to live his life as a lab-rat, trapped in a cage and controlled by higher powers. “Promise me we can still be friends; promise you’ll never leave me.”

“Bloody hell, Tommy.” Newt chuckled and Thomas couldn’t help but let a small smile make an appearance on his lips; he’s always known Newt’s laugh to be contagious. “Really think you can get rid of me that easy? Sorry, you’re stuck with me until we’re in rocking chairs complaining about shuckin’ aches and pains and the 'good ol’ days'.” Newt explained, using his fingers as impromptu quotation marks and Thomas found that the corner of his mouth tugged higher at that image. Rather abruptly, he realised life could be okay.

As long as Newt was with him.

**~*~**

“Newt.” Thomas said and even though he was frantically trying to hold his composure, his voice obviously didn’t get the memo and betrayed him, breaking and letting the telltale signs of his tears shine through the cracks.

“Can we just be bloody realistic about this?” Newt asked and Thomas was taken aback by his expression, left breathless by the tears hiding in his eyes. For a moment, he saw the old Newt, the uninfected Newt, the Newt from the Glade, the boy he truly loved and his heart broke just a little bit more. "I'm insane, Tommy. I'm losing hair, I'm angry all the bloody time for no reason, I'm covered in blood, which I'm not sure is all shuckin' mine, and I can't think straight. We're running low on options."

"Newt, there has to be another way, we can get you something. Some of that cure that Brenda got, some Bliss, anything for shuck’s sake, I can’t lose you." He exhaled; his voice as hushed as a whisper but, no matter how quiet he said it, there was no way to disguise the emotions hidden within the words. The pain they were both feeling was excruciating. "You can't leave me here, not on my own. Newt, please."

"Tommy, I don't want to, I, I can’t become one of those Cranks, I don't want to hurt anyone. I bloody want out!" Newt shot back and his voice was unusually raised, contrasting to his ordinary state of calm and tranquility. One moment his hands were flying around in a threatening manner, the next they were trained carefully upon Thomas’ own, both of their fingers wrapped around the trigger on Thomas’ gun, aiming it towards the temple on the side of Newt’s head. Thomas could feel the tremor in his fingers growing, threatening to push the trigger with the intensity of it. "Do it, Tommy! Kill me! Kill me!"

"I _can't_. Don't make me, Newt." Even to his own ears, his voice sounded broken and it was only then he noticed the tears streaming down his cheeks. It was only then he realised how much his hands were shaking, even though he wasn’t cold, even though the heat from the irreparable, broken Sun above was beating down on his back, burning it more and more with every second.

“I waited for you Tommy and you didn’t do anything! Fix it! Kill me! Do it or I’ll shoot you!” Newt shouted, the subject of his sudden outburst unclear and Thomas found his eyebrows lowering through lack of understanding before he could prevent them from doing so. Somehow, even when Newt was the one with the majority of control over the gun and there wouldn’t be enough time for him to move if he had decided to aim it at Thomas, he couldn't imagine him putting a bullet through his skull; Thomas felt remarkably safe.

“Is this about the note because I swear I read it but I couldn’t—“

“No, Tommy. This is about so much shuckin’ more than that piece of paper! But then,” At that, he chuckled but it was humourless and something felt amiss. Shaking, Thomas clutched his bottom lip between his teeth and hoped that, one way or another, he could change his best friend’s mind. “You’ve never really seen it, have you? Lost in being a bloody hero, lost in one stupid girl or another, lost in trying to save everybody. Well, guess what? I’m in love with you, Tommy!” And the way the British teenager had screamed it with everything he had tugged violently at the other’s heartstrings, like he'd held it in for centuries and was _finally_ allowed to say it. “But that doesn’t matter because you can’t always be the hero, you can’t save everyone and you certainly can’t save me.”

“Newt, you promised me, don’t you remember? Back by that bonfire for some new Glader, you promised me you’d never leave me here alone. You said we could grow old together, sitting on them chairs, please tell me you remember.” He rambled in response, a lump forming in his throat as he hoped that he was wrong, praying that there was some sane part of him left to save. Although he was staring directly into Newt’s eyes, he saw it out of the corner of his eye; a twitch in his hand. Then, his grip was visibly looser and his knuckles weren't as white.

“Yeah, Tommy, I remember, so what?” His words were cold, so cold that Thomas almost didn't do it but on a whim, dangerous and life-threatening, he tugged on Newt's shirt with his free hand and yanked him towards him until their foreheads were touching. He was so close that he could feel his breath against his lips but he couldn't think about that right now; he couldn't think about all the missed opportunities they had had to do this, how they could have done this every day after if Newt hadn't been infected, how they could have been this close to one another all along.

God knows if he'd actually let himself think about it, it would have broken him beyond repair. No, all he could think was ‘please don’t pull the trigger.’

“That day, I also promised to never leave you, Newt. Know why?” Thomas whispered, his voice hushed as though the whole thing is a secret, even though everyone around them already knew their feelings for each other before they even had a clue. Even as he was contemplating his next move, Thomas knew it was a risk, he knew it could all go wrong at any second but it dawned on him that he had nothing left to lose. He was pretty much dead inside anyway.

In a moment of sheer impulse, he pressed his lips against Newt's.

And the persistent screaming in both of their heads went silent. For a moment, everything was still, everything was peaceful and everything was as it should have been all along. Thomas found himself praying to some fictitious deity that he wasn't imagining the way Newt’s hold on the loaded pistol was continuing to gradually slacken. Not even thinking about what would happen when the pair of them pull apart, what he’d say and what he’d do to convince Newt to hold on, Thomas tangled his hand in his best friend’s hair, running his fingers through what remained of his dirty blonde locks, as he tried to urge the gun away from Newt's head with the other.

“Please don’t leave me,” Thomas mumbled, verging on unintelligibly, against the blonde’s lips, the tears in his eyes continuing to overflow, streaming down his cheeks like a dam breaking, finally letting every last drop of water seep out of its prison. “Oh God. Newt, I don’t know what I’d do without you, please don’t go.”

“No, no, no! You don’t shuckin' get to say that. Do you think I want to bloody leave you? Huh?” Newt yelled and Thomas had to choke down a sob of his own when he saw that Newt was crying just as much as he was, if not more. Out of nowhere, it was like his eyes cleared of the insanity clouding them, like all of a sudden he had found an anchor to hold onto and pull himself back to his usual state of calm and tranquility. “I never wanted to leave you, Tommy. I loved you and I still do but I’m a Crank. Any second I’m with you I’m petrified that I’m gonna turn bad and shuckin’ kill you.”

There was a pause and Thomas wondered just when he forgot how to breathe.

“I don’t wanna kill you, Tommy.”

"I know." Thomas' heart dropped as though two large hands were behind his ribs, pulling it apart and tearing it down the middle. He had to do this, he couldn't leave Newt to suffer and at that moment, he knew that they weren't both getting out of this alive. There was no other option. "I'll miss you, you shank."

"You still sound bloody ridiculous using Glader words." At that, the pair of them let out a snigger but it sounded more like a bawl from both parties, let out after being forlornly held in for the entire conversation. His words were a reminder of times and that had been the final straw. "I'll be waiting for you, just, just try to make it later rather than sooner."

"I love you."

"I love you too. So bloody much."

"Goodbye, Newt." Gun trained on the British boy's temple once more, Thomas took once glance into Newt's eyes before closing his own. With his heart falling into a black abyss, Thomas pulled the trigger but he could have sworn he heard a whispered 'thank you' before the sound rang through the air.

After the soul-crushing bang of the gun, the crack of Newt's skull as the bullet pierced through it and the final breath the blonde-haired boy had exhaled before allowing consciousness to slip through his fingers, the world fell into silence, almost feeling sorry for the pair, the star-crossed lovers who never truly got the ending they deserved. The Cranks surrounding them suddenly seemed to disappear, slipping into alleyways and hiding in the shadows and Thomas couldn't hear a thing apart from the ringing in his ears.

Barely a split second later, Thomas felt the cold, harsh barrel of the gun pressed against his chin, his lips pressed tightly together as he helplessly tried to choke back the sobs caught deep in his throat. He didn't care anymore. He didn't care about Laurence waiting for him a few steps away, he didn't care about W.I.C.K.E.D, he didn't care about the others, they would be fine without him. They survived before he got involved, they would do so after.

His eyes were still closed; he couldn't let himself look at what he had done to his best friend, no matter what the circumstances were. It wasn't fair, none of it was. Newt was as good as they get; kind, caring, rational even in the most stressful of situations and Thomas had loved him for it. Newt had deserved better, he should not have been the one with the Flare, he should not have been the one to _die._ All he had to do now was press down his index finger and the pain would end. Nobody else would die because of him.

And with that as motivation, Thomas pulled the trigger once more, surrendering entirely to the never-ending abyss.


End file.
